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Every day that you wait, you're falling faster. No sleight of hand, no twist of fate, no ever after. When it's gone, it's gone. A fight to the bitter end... Life won't wait for you, no life won't wait for you, my friend.

The idea behind a Copper Plated Bullet is that you get to use a very soft lead core (which is cheaper then a lead with higher Tin and Antimony content) and then use a cheaper thinner copper platting to prevent the leading. So you end up with a projectile that is going to behave like a very soft lead bullet in most ways. Not exactly ideal in most lines of thought. Honestly, I would rather use a pure lead bullet with a reasonable hardness in most situations then a copper washed bullet. A reasonably hard lead bullets for pistol are underrated imho. But I am not a caliber war or bullet junkie.

I can't believe I am typing this because these conversations always degrade into a stupid ......

FBI protocol basically says a bullet needs to penetrate at least 12 inch's (going from memory) to be effective. A really soft lead bullet may not meet that standard.

Yeah the FBI like a minimum of 12" of penetration however that is only one part of the testing. There are other factors.

Myself I like to have some track record and data available for a carry round if at all possible. If you find a bullet that does well in testing, has a track record and is used by LE (and the bullet is available to reloaders) you can duplicate the load and get duplicate results.

I will go out on a limb and say that most loaders still buy their carry ammo but reload their range ammo. Several of the premium JHPs on the market are only available in factory ammo.

1 more question then! If these plated bullets are just for plinking what are the different types (RN, RNFP, HP) meant for?
I'm getting ready to place a order and want to get the right/best kind

Some people think HP bullets fly a little better. The .40 is thought to be designed around a truncated cone bullet so the RNFP might be more appropriate than the RN. Of course, the HP will also work but the .40 HPs tend to still look like a truncated cone rather than a nice rounded bullet.

For plinking, it gets down to cost. I use plated and even jacketed for my wife's and grandson's loads - just to reduce lead exposure. For my own shooting, I prefer lead semiwadcutters (LSWC) although I use lead roundnose (LRN) as well.

I don't reload for SD - not ever. What little SD ammo I need, I can buy. Maybe I'll test a box every once in awhile. Meantime, I churn out a BUNCH of reloads for plinking.

Question about an DS round I saw this weekend. I saw these at Cabala’s. They looked like a steel or steel jacketed round. These rounds had very… very deep cavities that seem to reach to the bottom of the bullet. There were no notches around the hollow cavity like many HP rounds. The most telling aspect of the rounds was the weight and listed speed of the rounds. They were listed at only 55gn with a speed of 2000 FPS. Several people were looking at the rounds and commenting on how light the entire box of 20 rounds was.

I have yet to see a plated HP like Berry's or Ranier, expand reliably. The either expand, don't or fragment. They are not designed for expansion but for accuracy. Unless you actually test them, what you believe & know are two diff things. So IMO, a very poor choice for rolling your own SD/HD rounds, which isn't a good idea either, but another thread.

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"Given adequate penetration, a larger diameter bullet will have an edge in wounding effectiveness. It will damage a blood vessel the smaller projectile barely misses. The larger permanent cavity may lead to faster blood loss. Although such an edge clearly exists, its significance cannot be quantified".